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Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Quilting your Masterpiece

We all have that same feeling when a quilt top is finished; a sense of relief and accomplishment that we completed another beautiful work of art and how the end result is more beautiful than we could possibly have imagined. However, all that fades when we contemplate the quilting of our masterpiece! One word, DREAD!!!! Do you know that you should spend as much time quilting you quilt as you did piecing it? I know so many people who have countless quilt tops completed but left to languish because of their fear of ruining their quilt.

Here is a picture of Mary's quilt, the Lone Star to be exact. First, Mary quilted around each piece with a 1/4" quilting stitch. Then Mary decided to quilt a feathered wreath in the four corners:

The last step was to fill the large triangular space between the two star points. She marked the center line and took measurements then started drawing lines from the center out in even increments.

My advise is take your time and face the challenge of quilting by breaking down your piece into small areas and tackle each space individually. We often become overwhelmed when we look at the quilt as a whole rather than separated into all units.

When I quilted this little number;
I took the time to draw all the lines that needed to be quilted, or I made small marks for reference points to aim for while quilting. The extra time spent marking out all my quilting designs made the whole process both manageable and believe it or not fun!!

Hi Nicole! So very true, quilting is slowly becoming my favorite aspect of creating! Slowly is the operative word! You must be so looking forward to your special guests from Dublin arriving, my family arrives from Connecticut on Friday morning and we can't wait... Have a lovely Christmas and I really enjoyed all the tour of quilts, gorgeous...

I think there are two skills at play here - patchworking, and quilting. I am a patchworker, but not a quilter! I often use a very quick and lazy method of quilt as I go (Jackie can show you if you promise not to tell the patchwork police) or just echo quilt, or in the ditch, or diagonal lines. I think my thought process is "to much stash," I need to use fabric, not time and thread!

However, I do love to see beautifully quilted pieces, and Mary's is fab

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About Me

An American living, quilting and raising three gorgeous children in Co. Wexford Ireland. My DH and I are fortunate to be living on a beautiful sheep farm, running a B&B and operating a quilt shop, all the while keeping our sense of humor!